FLORENCE AND SAVONAROLA.
(Continued.)
"Dwell within the heart
adored,
Christ, our gentle King and Lord."
"Gentle Jesus, 0 how
blessed
He who flies this world for thee
His the breast whose state is
ever
calm, serene, and spirit free."
THESE words, taken from one of his
own conzonas, beautifully express the feelings of Savonarola, when he
turned his back on the world to enter the Dominican convent of Bologna.
Expecting amid its quiet cloisters to enjoy a mind - "calm, serene, and spirit
free," little did he anticipate the consequences of the step he had taken - how
he was to pass future years in a whirlwind of excitement, on a public stage,
fighting, and at length falling like a hero, beneath the banner of truth.
Little did this gentle spirit, lover of peace as of purity, dream, as he
entered the gates of the monastery, of a day when he would exclaim with
Jeremiah, "Woe is. me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife, a
man of contention to the whole earth !" But so it turned out.
On being
received into the convent, he deemed himself unworthy of any position there
higher than that of a lay brother. Clothed in a dress of the coarsest
materials, living on the simplest fare, and partaking very sparingly even of
that, his only bed a mattress filled with straw and stretched on a few bare
planks, Savonarola remained for some years in this position, employing himself
in teaching philosophy. Not that his heart lay in such studies; for, as the
needle, set free and wheeling on its pivot, returns eagerly, tremblingly to the
pole, so, when his professional duties were over, he did to the solitude of his
cell, and the study of the Scriptures. It was over the field they offered for
meditation he delighted to roam. They were the food of his soul, and to the
devout and diligent study of the Bible he ascribed all his light, his comfort,
and his remarkable attainments.He burned to engage in the work of saving souls,
yet shrank for some years from entering on the priestly office. This might be
ascribed to his sense of its responsibility and of the high qualifications
which it demanded. No preparatory studies, no Church ceremonial, neither Pope
nor prelate, he boldly averred, could make a man a priest; personal holiness,
in his judgment - as in Luthers, who said, It is not the cowl that makes
the monk - being not only the highest qualification for that office, but one
indispensable and essential. This qualification he possessed in a pre-eminent
degree. In no Church has there been many men so holy. Fra Sebastiano da
Brescia, a very devout Dominican, who was vicar of the congregation of
Lombardy, and for a long time his confessor, declared his belief that
Savonarola had never committed - what he calls - a mortal sin, and bears the
highest possible testimony to the purity of his life.
Perhaps his
reluctance arose also from the degraded position into which those who filled it
had brought the sacred office. So openly abandoned to vice were most of them at
that time, that he was in the habit of saying, "If you wish your son to be a
wicked man, make him a priest !" - a sentiment which gives us a terrible idea
of the state of the Church; and one which correctly described as well, the
regular as the secular clergy, cloistered monks as parish priests. Savonarola
had been behind the scenes. He was acquainted with the secrets both of the
convent and the confessional; and the recollection of the crimes his own eyes
had seen, and his own ears had heard of,within convent walls, often led him to
interrupt the vehement torrent of his discourses, and give vent to his horror
and agony in these cries : - " The chastity of the cloister is slain The purity
of the spouse of Christ is sullied !"
After spending seven years as a lay
brother, he accepted of ordination; but for a while contented himself with a
pastors, as distinguished from a preachers, work. Like "the
ointment in the right hand, which betrayeth itself," his merits could not be
concealed by his modesty; and he became so famous as a counsellor and confessor
that his brethren urged him to enter the pulpit; and this he at length
consented to do by preaching a series of Lent sermons, in 1483. So well known
were his learning, his uncommon piety, and glowing eloquence, that he appeared
in the pulpit at Florence, where these sermons were to be preached, with a very
high reputation. His hearers, on the tip-toe of expectation, were prepared to
admire and applaud. Yet no orator ever made a greater failure. In point of
style, of gesture, of manner, of voice, says Burlamacchi, it was an utter
failure.
Mortified and discomfited, Savonarola left this field, to pass the
next three years in various convents, where, meekly resuming his old
occupation, he devoted himself to the training of novitiates. He was not the
first, nor has he been the last great orator whose first appearance on the
public stage was a great failure. So let no man, who feels that he has the
wherewithal within him, yield to despair. His years of retirement were in some
respects like the forty which Moses, baffled in his first attempt to deliver
his countrymen, passed among the mountains of Midian; like the three years
which Paul, after his conversion, spent in the solitudes of Arabia. "Cast down,
but not destroyed," Savonarola was not idle. Having discovered where his faults
lay, and studied how to correct them, cultivated the arts of oratory, and
learned how to clothe his burning thoughts in choicest words, and also how to
suit the action to the word, he accepted an invitation to preach at Brescia.
Let the result teach ministers and preachers to pluck up courage, and take
pains. He carried the assembly, as it were, by storm. Now his fame spread
abroad; his services were in constant demand; and at length Prince Giovanni
Pico, a friend of Lorenzo de Medici, happened to hear him - a link that, no
doubt, in the chain of providence. Charmed, fascinated, the Prince urged
Lorenzo to invite him to Florence. He received Lorenzos invitation as a
divine call; and went there to become the prior of the Dominican convent of St.
Marco, a reformer, and the most famous preacher that had appeared in Italy.
In him, I may remark, as in most who had power to make men weep, pathos
appeared to be associated with a keen sense of humour. A nun, for example, when
the tide of persecution began to arise, had the impudence to challenge him to a
theological discussion. Entering the lists with a blare of trumpets, she threw
down her gage. No trumpet answered; nor monk, armed for controversy, appeared -
only a message from Savonarola, requesting her to mind her spinning-wheel. How
sly the humour of his answer to two Abbés who waited on him, "clothed in
soft raiment!" On this occasion Savonarola tumed the conversation to the vows
of poverty, as well as of obedience and chastity, which lay on the monkish
orders; enlarging so much on these, as he threw now and then an expressive
glance at the flowing garments of his visitors, that they began to suspect he
was reflecting on them. Put on the defensive, they alleged that garments made
like theirs, full and flowing, of ample measure and the finest cloth, lasted
longest, and were therefore most economical. Whereupon our monk replied, with a
comical smile, how much it was to be regretted that the founder of their order
had not known that, because then, instead of enforcing the use of plain,
coarse, and scanty garments, he would have established an altogether different
rule.
Another marked feature of Savonarolas character was the breadth
and tndemess of his sympathy; especially the warm and brotherly affection he
felt for the poor. As drawing him nearer to the poor, he seemed to take a
pleasure in his own privations - in the coarse dress, the mean accommodation,
and the hard fare which the rules of his order enjoined. So far from despising,
he regarded them as the suffering members of Jesus Christ, and the peculiar
objects of Gods love; calling "the poor his children, and poverty his own
spouse." This feature of his character, I may observe, as much as his fervid
eloquence and extraordinary power to mould the mind and move the passions of
men, forms a notable point of resemblance between him and
Chalmers.
Courage was
another of his features - such courage as distinguished John Knox, the man over
whose grave, before the mourners left it, the Regent Morton pronounced this
brief but great funeral oration, "There lies one who never feared the face of
man !" Savonarola gave proof of this so soon almost as he entered on his office
as prior of St. Marco. It had been the custom of his predecessors to wait on
the chief of the state to thank him for the place and honour. Savonarola
refused to do so. The monks, like "the conies, a feeble folk," were alarmed.
Father Prior, said they, if you do not pay this visit, the consequences may be
serious. Who has elected the prior? was his bold reply - God or Lorenzo? It was
done by God, no doubt, was their answer. "Then," said Savonarola, "it is my
Lord, my God, whom I wish to thank, no mortal man." Finding whom he had to deal
with, Lorenzo made many attempts on the one hand to win him over by his
attentions, and on the other by terror to force him to abandon his bold
attitude and faithful style of preaching. In vain. His flatteries and
attentions were lost on the man who, when Pope Alexander VI. hoped to seduce
him over by the offer of a cardinals hat, replied, "I desire no other hat
than the martyrs crown." Him whom favours could not seduce, fears did not
deter from following the path of duty. "Tell him," said he to a deputation who,
at the instigation of Lorenzo - determined to silence Savonarola by fair means
or foul - came urging him to leave Florence, "Tell him that he is the first man
in the city, and I am but a poor friar; nevertheless, it is he who has to go
from hence, and I who have to stay; tell him that he should repent of his sins,
for God has ordained the punishment of him and his." So it happened, I may
remark, not long afterwards when the house of the Medici fell, and the sceptre
departed from their hands.
The domestic affections were both singularly
strong and tender in Savonarola: a feature of his character the more worthy of
notice as proving how strong was that love of Christ which drew him from a home
to which he was bound by so many and such tender ties. His letters overflow
with affection. Very touchingly they show the love of home beautifully blending
with the love of God and of his Son - as on the horizon heaven and earth seem
to touch, to meet and embrace each other. Let him speak for himself: - "My most
loved mother," he says in one letter, "do not lament my being far from you, and
going about from place to place; for I do all this for the salvation of many
souls, preaching, exhorting, confessing, reading, and giving counsel. I go
nowhere except for these ends. And therefore you ought rather to be comforted
in feeling that God had been pleased to choose a child of yours for this
mission. Madre mia henorandissima, my most honoured mother, do not
grieve at this, because the more pleasing I make myself to God, the more
efficacious will be my prayers to Him for you." "Most honoured and most loved
mother," he writes in another letter, "the divine peace and consolation be with
you. Having heard of the death of my uncle Borso, your brother, I began to
think what were the designs of Providence with regard to our house. . . . Your
Creator lays his hand on you to awaken you, in order that you shou1d rise from
the heavy sleep in which you have long lain. Questi dna, nadre mea, voce dat
cielo - there, my mother, are voices from heaven. They cry aloud to you to
withdraw from earthly things: they invite you to fix your affections on Jesus
Christ. Believe me, mother, sisters, and brother, all most beloved, that the
must sweet Jesus, our All-powerful Saviour, comes to you exclaiming, Come to my
kingdom. . . . Oh, good God! oh, infinite mercy! oh, inestimable charity! that
He should come to our hearts, as if He had a great need for us."
Like those
summits of Monte Rosa, which rise above the snowy mass of a mountain that
towers over all its fellows, and stands among the Alps second, and almost
equal, in height to Mont Blanc, there are some points in the character of
Savonarola peculiarly pre-eminent, in which his superiority to his age, and to
the men of it, culminates. In respect of these he rises up before us, as I have
seen some lofty mountain top, which, catching the sun before he touched the
meaner hills, was in a blaze of light when it was but dawn on their tops, and
almost darkness in the valleys at their feet. Let us look at two or three of
these. Look at him as A PREACHER.
The day is breaking over Florence;
and the warders on her walls descry by its grey light people gathering along
the different roads that approach the gates. Byand-by there stands at each an
eager and impatient crowd. They must have been early astir; for there mingled
together are inhabitants of all the villages and hamlets of the hills, in whose
lovely bosom Florence lies, with men and women who have left their distant
cabins and flocks amid the rocks and romantic valleys of the Apennines. They
have come for a different purpose from the early villagers I have seen pouring
into that city at break of day, bringing for sale the flowers of their gardens
and the produce of their fields. Seriousness sits on most faces; their talk is
not of markets, or of the common topics of the day. Higher matters engage their
minds and occupy their conversation, till the gates swing open. Then the crowd
pour in, to join the citizens who, issuing from different streets, make their
way to the Cathedral, and soon fill the vast area to overflowing; nor wait long
till Savonarola ascends the pulpit to move them as the wind the waters of a
lake, and tha tall reeds that fringe the shallows of its shore.
With
extraordinary gifts as a preacher, I may here remark, Savonarola was also, in
the opinion of many, endowed with other and still more extraordinary gifts. He
was believed to be a prophet. It is not difficult to account for this. He
preached largely from the Apocalypse; and bringing its mysterious utterances to
bear on his own times, and the political movements with which he was mixed up,
it is not difficult to believe that, speculating on events still in the womb of
time, he made some happy hits; and so came to be regarded by many as invested
not only with the preachers, but the prophets mantle. A man of
enthusiastic temperament, whose position often led him to scan and turn an
anxious eye on the future, it is not difficult to understand also how, in some
moments of his life, he himself should believe that God had been pleased to
reveal it in answer to his prayers. I am not prepared to positively affirm this
to have been a baseless fancy. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear
Him;" and who shall limit the Holy One of Israel, saying how far He may not go
in revealing his secret purposes to such as are with Him in communion as close
and holy as Savonarolas? Still his case may be only analogous to that of
John Knox - a man of such keen sagacity that he foresaw, and foreseeing
foretold, the results that were almost certain, under the moral government of
God, to follow from certain lines of conduct. This was all which Knox claimed,
and all probably which Savonarola possessed. It might be said of him as
Cornelius Nepos says of Cicero, "His prudence seemed to be a kind of
divination, which foretold everything that afterwards happened, with the
veracity of a prophet." It is more important to remark, as a lesson to
preachers, that the materials of those sermons by which Savonarola charmed and
moved alike the most learned and most illiterate, were mainly drawn from two
sources - - the word of God and his own heart. So he spoke to mens
business and bosoms - mincing no matters; calling things by their right names;
plucking the mask from the face of hypocrisy; exposing the foulness of whited
sepulchres; dragging out vice, to the light of day and the execration of
mankind, alike from the chambers of popes and princes ; exhorting all orders of
men to abandon their immoralities and flee to Jesus Christ as the only Saviour
of sinners; and all this in language so plain as to be level to the meanest
capacity, and yet glowing with such impassioned eloquence, as to astonish and
enchain the most refined. It was souls he yearned to save. Others preached
about the saints, he preached the Saviour; religion not as an outward form, but
an inner life - a close, daily communion with God. Speaking of and condemning
the ordinary preachers, here is his language:- "They have been, says God, the
ruin of my people: they did not know how to teach the way of truth, but rather
praised their flocks, saying, To what an extent you are devout! You have many
relics, many hospitals, many monasteries; you make many processions, and many
feasts! Thus, alas, do they go about praising and deceiving the people! they
are like the musicians and the singers in the house of him whose daughter lay
dead, and who did not recall her to life. In the presence of souls without
life, they imagine they can resuscitate them with their questions, and
subtilties, and authorities, and beautiful similitudes. They have no success.
Oh what lugubrious death-songs do they make! and yet, not only are the dead not
revived, but very often the living are slain. Our Saviour enters the house;
sees these performers, and having put them forth, resuscitates the dead."
The ordinary proverbs, New brooms sweep clean - Every dog has his day, are
inapplicable to the case of Savonarola. For eight years at least, till his
enemies, who hated his light as foul birds the sun, having quenched it in his
blood, he shone as a preacher with undecaying lustre. Jovius, in his "Life of
Leo X.," says, speaking of our monk, "He was a man of marvellous eloquence;"
and the distinguished biographer and panegyrist of Lorenzo the Magnificent,
whose sympathies were not with the prior of St. Marco, but with his enemy,
nevertheless says, "that the divine word from the lips of Savonarola descended
not among the audience like the dews of heaven: it was the piercing hail, the
destroying sword, the herald of destruction." And there was need that much of
his preaching should bear that character, as we shall see now, on looking on
him as
A REFORMER.
It is in Gods moral as in his physical
government of the world, where there is no sudden step from light to darkness;
the day is preceded by the dawn. It were not only contrary to analogy, but to
all the lessons of experience to expect to find a Luther, a Calvin, a Cranmer,
a Knox, in our Italian Reformer. He had left the grave, but came forth, like
Lazarus, wearing its cerements; or, to borrow another figure from Scripture,
his eyes had been opened, but not to see objects clearly - only to "see men as
trees walking." He had arrived at no settled conviction of the unscriptural
character of the Church of Rome. To the last she held him by the grave-clothes;
so, though he died a martyr for the truth, it was protesting against the abuses
in the Church more than against her doctrines and constitution.
Though no
"root and branch" reformer, Savonarola prepared the way for such as were; for
though cleaving to many of the errors of Rome, he held fast to this grand
doctrine of the Reformation, justification by the righteousness of Jesus Christ
- not by works, but by faith. "So long," he said, "0 man, as thou believest
not, thou art, because of sin, deprived of grace. 0 God, save me by Thy
righteousness - by Thy Son. I seek Thus equipped, Savonarola went forth to
reform Thy mercy - I bring Thee not mine own righteousness." Thus he paved the
way for those who were to complete the work he had begun; and also by another
doctrine which he boldly propounded and maintained in the face of a Church that
withholds from the laity the free use Gods word, and denies them the
right of private judgment. I refer to the supreme authority of the Scriptures,
and the duty of people to read them, and try all doctrines and ceremonies at
their bar
"People of Florence, give yourselves to the study of the sacred
Scriptures! The first blessing is to understand them. Let us publicly confess
the truth. They have been locked up; this light has been almost extinguished,
set aside, left in the dust." "If," said Savonarola, when threatened with
stension, "the Popes commands contend with the divine decrees, none are
bound to observe them; to observe such commands would be a sin. Should the
Church command anything against the law of love, then I say, Thou art not the
Church, nor a shepherd, but a man, and dost err
A man of his word,
what he dared to say, he dared to do; so that, when at length he was suspended,
he appeared some short while afterwards in the pulpit, saying, "I have ascended
this pulpit to obey Him who is the Prelate of all prelates, the Supreme Pontiff
of all Popes" . The change he wrought on Florence was quite marvellous.
Religion seemed to become the great business of its life; iniquity, as ashamed,
was made to hide its face; the city showed all the signs of a great revival;
men, while not neglecting their shops and business, went daily from them to
engage in religious services in the church; all sinful and many ordinary
amusements were abandoned; immodest books, statues, and pictures were given to
the flames; hymns took the place of lascivious songs, and by night and day
filled the streets with voices of holy melody; not only was there a great
shaking among the dry bones, but around Savonarola, that prophet-like man,
thousands in Florence seemed to stand up "on their feet, an exceeding army."
In his attempts to reform the Church, Savonarola did at least this good
service, he laid bare the vices of Churchmen, from the Pope down to begging
friars. If he did not overturn the fabric, he shook its foundations; and
so made the work of future ages the easier. How thoroughly and boldly he went
to work, let his letter to the Emperor of Germany testify. After telling him
how he had written on the same subject to the Kings of France, Spain, England,
and Hungary, he goes on to say "At present in the Church of God we see a state
of things in which, from head to foot, there is no soundness, but an abominable
aggravation of all vices. Iniquity usurps the seat of Peter, and without shame
runs into all disorders. I testify in the name of the Lord, that this Alexander
VI. is not a pontiff. He bought the papal throne, and by other manifest vices,
I affirm, amongst other things, that he is not a Christian."
Take another
bold specimen. Addressing cardinals, bishops, priests monks, nuns, as well as
the people, he asks -
"How have you renounced the devil and his pomps, you
who every day do his works? You have left the manna and bread of angels for
food fit for swine. Your avarice augments; luxury contaminates everything;
blasphemies pierce the heavens. You are of the devil, who is your father, and
you seek to do his will. Cast your eyes in Rome; from the crown of the head to
the sole of the foot no sanity is there!"
Such were the enemies of God and
man against whom Savonarola, as a reformer, entered the lists to wage a deadly
conflict - but not rashly, or ignorant of the issue. He foresaw that; knew it
as well as we who read it in his martyrdom and the bloody page of history.
These - fit introduction to a brief account of that martyrdom - are his own
prophetic-like words:- "Do you ask me in general what will be the end of the
conflict?
I answer, Victory! But if you ask me in particular, I answer,
Death! But Rome shall not quench this fire, as it will endeavour to do. If it
quenches it in one, another and a stronger will break out."
A
MARTYR.
On the evening of Sunday, the 9th of April, 1498, while
Savonarola and his brethren were engaged in singing vespers, the doors of St.
Marco were besieged by a furious mob, which filled all the principal avenues to
the monastery. The clergy were his enemies; he had boldly exposed their pride,
and the vices in which they wallowed. So were the usurers - a powerful body in
Florence: he had denounced their rapacity and the way they ground the faces of
the poor, the widow, the fatherless, and the stranger. So were the artists -
whose pictures were less admired were their history better known; he had
exposed the manner in which they prostituted religion and desecrated holy
things, selecting for models of the Virgin, and other female saints, their own
mistresses, and courtezans of Florence as well known for their vices as for
their beauty. So were the selfish politicians; against whom he had boldly stood
up for the rights of the people and the liberties of the State. Now that the
Pope had determined to place the seal of death on his brave lips, these, after
Savonarola had been put on his trial, stirred up the scum of Florence to this
murderous assault.
The monks, his brethren, with some lay friends who had
hastened to the rescue, barricaded the doors of the monastery; and while they
were thus engaged, Savonarola, seeing some of the brothers with arms in theirs,
refused such defences, saying, "The arms of monks should be spiritual, not
carnal." By-and-by the tumult without waxed louder and louder. Some rung the
convent bell; others stood by the doors; but most those within took their place
by the high altar, and along with Savonarola engaged in prayer, in momentary
expectation of death. Fire accomplished what force could not. The doors yielded
to the flames; a furious rabble burst in; battle raged in the quiet cloisters;
blood besprinkled them; and along these, cutting down all opponents, the mob
rushed, making the way to the choir, where, calmly waiting death, Savonarola
and his brethren knelt, engaged in prayer. Not that all did so; there were some
fighting men among these monks. Marco Gondi, who afterwards rose to
distinction, faced a party armed with drawn swords, and kept them for a while
at bay, with no better weapon than a wooden crucifix. Another called Petrucci,
a strong, brave fellow, laid about him vigorously with a torch, and dashing
through the crowd escaped without a wound. A third, Herico, a German, mounted
the pulpit, where he opened fire on the rabble, killing many, and crying out
each time he shot, "Salvum fac populum tuum, et benedicite hereditati
tu." The place at length was carried. The resistance, such as it was,
ceased. Savonarola, rising from his knees, gave himself up to commissaries from
the Signoria; but before leaving the convent, with their permission, and amid
that scene of cruel and bloody violence, he addressed a few words of
exhortation to his brethren. He made a solemn and touching speech; the last
words of his farewell this noble sentiment : "A Christian life consists in
doing good, and enduring evil."
The next day he was put to the torture.
Seven times in all did his enemies put him to the question; forcing him to cry
out amid its intolerable agonies, "Tolle Domine, tolle animam meam !"
These examinations lasted from the 10th of April to the 22nd of May; and ended
in declaring that Savonarola, with two of the brothers, should be given up to
the flames, as heretics, and schismatics, and rebels of the holy Church. The
sentence was carried into execution the next day, on the 23rd of May. The place
selected for the purpose was the principal square of Florence. We have stood
there on the very spot, and fancied the scene - the mighty crowd, the sea of
heads, over which rose three platforms; the first, near the palace, for the
bishop and his attendants, who were to perform the ceremony of degrading the
martyrs, all the three being priests; the second in a more central position,
occupied by the commissioners of the Pope, Alexander VI., the foulest and
bloodiest monster perhaps that ever disgraced humanity; the third, which stood
near the golden lion, filled by the civil authorities, surrounded by their
men-at-arms, and in the pride and pomp of state. From a mound of earth stands
up a lofty pole; around it is heaped a great pile of faggots; and on its top a
beam rests in the manner of a cross, from which hang dangling the ropes and
iron chains about to be used in the execution. Here, after suffering many
public and cruel indignities, half-naked and barefooted, Savonarola and his
fellow-confors are led. The executioners now advanced to do their office on
these victims of hellish cruelty and Romes craft. Having fallen on their
knees, and prayed - each looking on his crucifix - one after another they
ascend the fatal ladder, and are pushed off from its steps into the empty air.
The rope tightens with a jerk; a few convulsive struggles, and the ransomed
spirit is on its flight to glory, careless of what betides the poor body, which
now drops piecemeal into the fire below. No friendly hand gathers the ashes to
place them in a sacred urn. They are collected, but it is to be cast in
dishonour on the waters of the Arno; a circumstance that recalls to our
recollection what befell the ashes of Wickliffe - how they were thrown, as
Fuller relates, into the Avon, and the Avon bore them into the Severn, and the
Severn into the narrow seas, and these into the great ocean, where, emblem of
his doctrines, they were carried to every shore on earth. How similar, in all
essential respects how identical, the doctrines of Savonarola with the faith of
Wickliffe, and of all that cloud of witnesses which Rome has sent to heaven
from bloody scaffolds and in fiery chariots, the following beautiful verses
prove. They are a translation of one of Savonarolas hymns, and with
these, his own words, I close his instructive story.
"Jesus, refuge of the weary-,
Object of the
spirits love,
Fountain in desert dreary,
Saviour from the world
above
"Oh, how oft thine eyes, offended,
Gazed upon the sinners
fall,
Yet thou on the cross extended
Bore the penalty of all
"For
our human sake enduring
Tortures infinite in pain,
By thy death our
life assuring,
Conquerors, through thee we reign!
Jesus, would my heart
were burning
With more vivid love for thee!
Would my eyes were ever
turning
To thy cross of agony!